


New Year's Resolution

by Serenitys_Lady



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Introspection, New Year's Eve, New Year's Resolutions, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 06:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15551991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenitys_Lady/pseuds/Serenitys_Lady
Summary: The Doctor reflects on his past life, and is determined to be better.





	New Year's Resolution

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Maybe in the New Year, the Doctor and Donna will come to visit more often and stay longer.
> 
> A/N: The basic idea had been bouncing around my head for a bit, but my Muse decided that New Year’s Eve morning was the right time to put this into words. As a result, it was marginally proofread. I have tried to correct this as I post it here, but I apologize in advance for the inevitable typos and such.

The Doctor was stood on a hill overlooking a section of West London.  He had delivered his current companion back to her family for short visit.  They had been through quite a lot in the relatively short time they had been traveling together that he felt she deserved a holiday.  And when better than Christmas.  It was a time for families, after all.  
  
She had been surprised at his suggestion and touched at his thoughtfulness.  What surprised them both even more was his readiness to accompany her.  He had told her when they first met that he ' _didn’t do that sort of thing’_.  But this time he has happy to join her for Christmas Eve dinner, and even returned for the Christmas Day festivities.  
  
That had been a week ago.  He had left her alone to shop with her mother on Boxing Day and while she spent time with her friends.  He remained on the TARDIS and made some necessary, if not urgent, repairs.  He wrote in his journal, something he had been woefully neglectful of in the recent past.    
  
As a result, he found himself on this hill on this night, thinking about his life.  Even since Pope Gregory XIII revised the calendar, this day had become the last day of the year, and many traditions regarding the past and the future had sprung up.  Humans like to categorize things, to look at cause and effect.  So it made perfect sense to them to create a holiday on which to reflect on their past and contemplate their future.  
  
He had lived so long that a review of his past would take a veritable eternity.  To simplify things, he chose to look back only as far as this version, his tenth life.  He smiled to himself.  He had had a few memorable Christmases in this body, he mused.  He was barely a few hours old and had to save this planet from an invasion by the Sycorax.  He had joined Rose, Mickey and Jackie for Christmas dinner that year.   _‘Poor Rose,’_  he thought.   _‘She wanted so much from me that I couldn’t give her.’_  
  
He though back to the next Christmas, well, Christmas Eve really.  He had just lost Rose to the parallel world and was feeling quite distraught at losing his friend and companion.  He chuckled.  He didn’t have much time to wallow in self-pity.  Mere minutes after the Void closed, a tempest in white appeared in the TARDIS and all he could do was hang on for dear life.  Robot Santas, Racnoss, Huon particles, and a ginger firebrand make for one unforgettable Christmas!  
  
After losing Rose so unfortunately and so permanently, he had thought – briefly – that he wasn’t sure he wanted another companion.  But the formidable Donna Noble changed all that.  As the day – and their adventure – progressed, he became more taken with her strength, her courage, her loyalty, and, if he were honest, her stunning ginger hair.  He asked her to join him, when the Racnoss were sorted.  And amazingly, she said  **NO**!    
  
People rarely turned him down, and he wasn’t exactly sure how to react.  The one thing he  **was**  sure of was that he didn’t want her to know just how disappointed he was.  She invited him to Christmas Eve dinner, but he begged off.  He wasn’t sure he could keep his regret at her refusal from showing.  Her parting words to him were a request that he find someone, someone to stop him.  
  
He thought on that for a moment.  While it was true, he  _did_  find someone, he doubted she was what Donna was envisioning for him.  Martha Jones was a smart, beautiful, clever, caring woman, and he treated her disgracefully, to his shame.  He was still mourning the loss of his friend Rose, and smarting from Donna’s refusal.  He never noticed what was happening with Martha emotionally.   _‘Well,’_  he thought,  _‘I’ve always been rubbish with emotions.  I am a man of action, after all.’_  He mentally kicked himself for that thought.   _‘Idiot.  You just don’t pay enough attention.’_  
  
Martha made so many sacrifices for him and he repaid her by making her feel second-best.  That was never his intention, but he could never explain it properly.  While he was sad when she declared that she had to  _‘get out’_ , as she put it so succinctly, he was also enormously proud of her.  She saved the Earth, at tremendous personal expense, and never asked for anything in return.  He knew, somehow, he would see her again.  
  
And once again, immediately after losing a companion, another impossibility occurred, this time in the form of the Titanic!  Well, not the  _original_  Titanic.  Been there, done that.  Twice.  This was a cruise liner-spaceship in orbit around Earth.  He thought it would be a nice idea to join the revellers, get his mind off losing  _another_  companion.    
  
As usual, things did not work out quite as he had hoped.  The ship had been booby-trapped by its psychotic owner Max Capricorn, intending to crash it into the Earth as revenge on his company for forcing him out.  With the help of Midshipman Alonso Frame –  _‘Allons-y, Alonso!’_ he thought with an internal giggle – and the sweet Astrid Peth, he was able to avert disaster.  But once again at a cost.    
  
He had lost Astrid to the stars.  Once again, someone who had wanted to travel with him, who he could see himself caring about, was snatched away.  He thought of her sometimes, gazing at the night sky, or out the TARDIS doors while in flight.  She was another one who recognized that he needed someone to watch out for him.  He hoped she was happy, dancing with the silver points of light around her.  
  
This brought him back to his current circumstances, standing atop  _‘the Hill’_ , as Donna’s grandfather Wilf calls it.  This is the older man’s place of refuge and, for the moment, the Doctor’s as well.  Seeing Donna with her family this Christmas, spending time as part of that family, gave him much to think about.  
  
Finding Donna again, or rather having  _her_  find  ** _him_** , had delighted him more than he expected it would.  He had thought about her, off and on, during the time since she turned him down, but he had never expected the see her again.  What were the odds, after all?  Astronomical!  But he did, and she was just as brilliant as ever, just as clever and wise, perhaps a little more confident but certainly just as quick to keep him in line.  And he was joyfully grateful.  
  
They’d been through quite a bit together, he considered.  In fact, their first real outing had been Volcano Day in Pompeii.  Oh, how he had wanted to impress her with Time and Space.  Funny how things have a way of turning back on you.  She was the one who impressed  _him_.   _She_  was the one who convinced him to  _‘just save someone’_.  He sighed as the next thought crossed his mind.   _She_  was the one who said,  _‘Never mind us’_  and offered to share his burden and his death, if needs be.  
  
If he were completely honest with himself, he would admit to falling a bit in love with his companion at that moment.  Her concern for others, her selflessness, was far more attractive than any physical attributes.  Not that Donna wasn’t attractive.  Quite the contrary, she was bloody gorgeous.  But that was secondary.  He had begun to suspect that she was closer to being an equal than an assistant than anyone who had ever travelled with him.  Well, perhaps with one exception.  
  
With each narrow escape, tight squeeze and alien incursion, with every smack on the arm and snarky comment, she seemed to grow dearer and dearer to his hearts.  But it took a misunderstanding, a bit of confusion, during the ATMOS incident to wake him up to just how important is was to him to have Donna Noble in his life.  And had given him countless sleepless nights thinking about what he wanted to do about it.  
  
There was a large and impossible obstacle standing firmly in his way:   **MATES**.  A word he hated more than anything and one he wished had never entered his vocabulary.  It had been necessary at the time, but now was an annoyance and a hindrance.  What could he do to reverse that terrible statement?  
  
He looked down at the lights below him and the lights above.  It was almost time for the ringing in of the New Year.  A time for new beginnings, for change, for adjustment of attitudes.  For making of new resolutions for one’s life.  He stood silently for a long while, thinking of ways he could change.  He  ** _resolved_** to be a different man, a better man.  For Donna.  And then, perhaps, she would  ** _see_**  him as less than a mate, and more of a love.  He was willing to try.  
  
  
  
Donna walked up behind the Doctor and put her hand on his shoulder.  “Hey, Spaceman,” she said quietly.  “Whatcha doing up here all by yourself?  It’s nearly midnight.  Mum’s about to pop the champagne.   It’s just Marks & Spencer’s but it’ll do to toast the New Year.”  
  
The Doctor turned and faced his companion, his best friend and – he hoped someday soon – his love.  Smiling, he threw an arm around her shoulder and led her back down the hill toward her family home, a delighted thrill going through him when he felt her arm snake around his waist.  Ah, the hope of a New Year.  
  


Happy New Year, my friends.

 

Slàinte Mhath!  
(Scots Gaelic for Good Health)


End file.
